A Modeler with Character

As early as 6,000 B.C., humans have been sculpting their interpretation of the human form. Today that practice is still very much alive in our physical and digital mediums.

Character artists are responsible for producing the people and creatures we embody and interact with in our video games. Whether you're playing as, talking with, or fighting against these characters, they all have one thing in common: the player must believe in them. If they don't appear to belong in the world they inhabit, or have an appealing look, players will reject them and won't buy into the world.

Jonathan Nascone is a Senior Character Artist for Cryptic Studios currently working on Star Trek Online. Jon is responsible for creating new and interesting takes on established character designs in order to provide players with unique appearances for the myriad of cultures that make up the Star Trek universe. A self-style digital sculptor, Jon is happy to just sit at home with Z-brush molding a virtual clay ball into whatever he can imagine.


Why is the character artist role important for the success of a game?

For Star Trek Online we recently announced the game is adopting a free to play model. In F2P a part of that is costuming your character with items like weapons or clothing. We are making an abundance of quality pieces which people can either earn through in-game means or purchase with real money. Characters are just one piece of the puzzle for our game.

As a character artist, especially one on the Star Trek MMO, we have guidelines to go by and cannon to follow. It's a challenge to try to take those established ideas and make them into fresh and new quality pieces. As a character artist on our team we really try to make items that players really want to have. It's fun knowing we can make these cool pieces for the player to go out and acquire.

Working here at Cryptic has been a really interesting adventure so far. You have to learn a bit of programming and a lot of things artists don't typically do. The engine is pretty robust but it takes a good year to master all the ins and outs. I'm 5 months in and I'm still learning how parts of it work.

As a character artist at other companies I was never responsible for rigging and skinning. Things like that were the responsibility of the technical artist. I have an understanding about how to model a character so it deforms properly but I would never actually go through and put in bones, skin the character, then bring them into the engine. It's a lot of extra work and I kind of miss just doing character art but I'm becoming a better and more well-rounded artist for it.

It sounds like you take a character through from beginning to end at Cryptic: model, texture, rig, import into the engine, then make sure it works for all the needs of the game.

Ya, then past the engine to the actual tailor. I set up screenshots for marketing and I'll set up the character with the tools which the player will use to purchase it on the web by doing some coding and stuff. You do it twice too. You make one costume, but it has to have both male and female variants. We get 3 weeks to a month to make one costume set. The art itself is only the first 1/3 or less. The rest of the time is clean up and getting it set up with all the game systems.


Are you given some artistic license to come up with new character pieces like clothing or weapons in order to create something fresh and new that still fits within the cannon of the established Star Trek cultures?

That's been one of the hardest things. We're a small team, roughly 30 people. They're all diehard Star Trek fans. They know the fiction inside and out. I came onto the team not having played MMOs. I like Star Trek but just don't know much about it. I'm learning more about the cannon and the MMO genre every day. So automatically my take on the material is kind of different because I don't come from that background. My first few months were spent learning about the different races and their color palettes, the kind of outfits they wore, and what materials they're made from.

Once you get that kind of base knowledge down then you can start taking those themes and making a spin on that. They do encourage that here at work. We have some concept artists who will create rough sketches and then we go to town and do iterations on our assigned pieces which are later approved by the art director.

Now that I better understand the races, the Klingons for example, I can take the basis for them and really play with it the best I can so you will recognize the design as Klingon but in a fresh new way. So long as we have iconic callback pieces like the emblem of the empire usually the community will like it.

Occasionally we'll have fans call us out for things being not correct. We had an issue where we added a starship from one of the movies. This is a ship that is onscreen in the film for less than a second. It was modeled in the game with something like 86 windows instead of 87 and one of the fans caught it. They went through and counted each one in-game. So we went back and fixed it. We have some very passionate, diehard fans and as an artist you get a little bit wary sometimes because you want to make sure it's "right" in their eyes but also novel. It's an interesting challenge. I'm always learning new stuff.


Speaking of challenges, what is the greatest challenge you have had to overcome, either with a personal project or professionally?

There were a lot of challenges when I worked at Ubisoft. The studio was at first created to work on DS and PSP games. They got the go ahead from France to work on something new for a different system. So in order to make this bigger product they took the staff they already had, who were great at what they did, and hired up a lot more quality people. I had great co-workers who were talented artists but the direction for how to go about making this new big thing, which was ten times the size and complexity of a handheld game, created a lot of conflict and problems.

That was a real challenge to try and stay on track and try to make this thing become reality. At this point it still hasn't but I think as a team we learned to communicate, brainstorm, and have effective meetings. Being part of the core team to actually have creative input on the game was really cool. I try to take that knowledge for having effective communication and presenting my ideas cohesively with a team everywhere I go.


What work are you most proud of? Why?

It's hard to ask an artist that question! To us nothing's ever quite finished, it can always be improved. I think everything I do, either personally or at work, I try to get better with every project or assignment. I can't honestly say there's something that's the best I've ever done before because I know it's not.

I'm definitely proud of all the games I've worked on. I'm proud of the things that I've done on my blog. I know they aren't perfect or finished so they're definitely things to work on. There's no one particular piece that stands out above the rest.


What is it about your current employer or the game industry in general that makes you want to come into work every day?

I don't consider what I do to be just a job but my career. I know it's weird but I know certain people have jobs where they go to work in the morning and want to be out of there right at quitting time, if not sooner. With doing art and video games I don't feel that way. I've worked many jobs in the past where I tried to get in and out as fast as I can, just earn your money and go. We're in a creative field even though some of our creativity is focused in certain ways. I don't take what I get to do for granted at all. I've worked really hard to get here so I can't come to work and not care and just do my 9-5 and be done.

To be able to make an experience that people get to play, it's really cool. When I made my first asset for Brothers in Arms and actually saw it in the game, that was the coolest thing ever. This weapon I made: you can play with it in the game. People around the world can use it. They don't know I made it but the satisfaction that it's in there is so gratifying.

Working at America's Army and seeing our blood, sweat, and tears go into making the product was a really good feeling. I never cared about having my name out there knowing an object or character was from me, but the fact that I know I was a part of something like that is the best feeling ever. I'm proud to be able to say, "Ya, I worked on that"!

So when I come to work every day, even though I'm learning about Star Trek and other new stuff, it's fun things to learn! I'm getting to create something new and unique every day that people can see and play with. I wouldn't trade it for anything.


Are there any techniques or best practices you have learned or developed that have served you well?

It's really simple. I think being an artist nowadays with tools changing every 6 months to a year you really have to never turn off that desire to learn, to try to better yourself and your skill set. I've known artists in the past who have felt they've learned all they need to and they can just do their work with the same tools forever. But things change so rapidly you NEED to have that hunger to always keep learning and try to better yourself in order to be able to survive in a creative field like games or movies.

It doesn't matter what tool you learn, there are so many. Pick a few you want to go with and keep learning from other artists who use those tools and try to better yourself whether you're at school or at your job or wherever you're at. That's really important to keep having that hunger to learn and better yourself. Don't be afraid to share that knowledge with your classmates or coworkers.

At Ubisoft we could volunteer to teach courses on site. We'd tell HR we wanted to lead a seminar on a particular subject and they would help us set it up. It was a great environment for sharing knowledge between artists.

Tell me a little bit about your background.

Originally I wanted to get into art and movies as a kid watching stuff like Jurassic Park. I was a big fan of Jim Henson. When I went to college to pursue that I realized computers were the way to go. Physical effects produced by guys like Stan Winston weren't as big anymore so I got into computers, movies, and cinema.

Out of school I was able to find contract work for game companies through friends. I realized I had more freedom working on games so I went along that career path. I started doing contract work for some small companies making games on the PC. I did some work on the Nokia N-Gage. It was interesting working on that a little bit. I did some contract work for Gearbox on Brothers in Arms. That gave me some military experience which ultimately got me a job working for America's Army.

After that I worked for Ubisoft trying something different. Now I'm back in California working for Cryptic Studios on Star Trek Online trying a different genre: sci-fi. I didn't plan to be here but it's kind of how things happened. Still doing games and enjoying it.

You said you realized computers were the way to go. Did you originally go into school to study physical effects for movies?

In high school I loved playing with clay. I loved more hands-on kind of stuff: materials, textures, that kind of thing; using tools to manipulate clay and painting on the actual model. You spend a lot of money for school so you can get a good education so you can get a job and pay back those school loans. I had a lot of friends who were painters and photographers and I realized there is a lot of great stuff in doing that but financially you live and die by trying to get your work into galleries or publications. The sad tradeoff is now I get paid more than a struggling photographer but my creative freedom is lessened. Your art is focused on what the project is and you have more creative input the higher you get but it's still not what you get out of doing your own personal work.

Do you feel your work is not as creatively fulfilling as it would have been should you have pursued a purely artistic path making physical models or painting?

Ya, when it comes from your own brain and ideas, you're the only thing holding you back. You get more freedom. Thankfully with games now at least there's a lot of tools and things you can do. You're still focused on what the project is and the style being chosen by the art director. I think if you're on your own or part of a small team you have more freedom to experiment and try things out.


What are your inspirations?

Most recently my fellow artists. I'm constantly going onto forums trying to see what's out there, what's cool, be inspired by concept art or another 3D artist, a game, a movie, books. I'm inspired by multiple types of media. The fact you can go to Z-brush Central or Polycount forums and find someone that posts their work and you say, "Jeez, this guy's really got some talent, some really creative ways of going about doing stuff." That's always inspiring. It puts a fire under your butt to try to get better and learn more and be inspired by other great works.

I can't think of any specific names right now, but I have a full backlog of saved jpegs and images of my inspirations. Those are invaluable to reference.

Are there any individuals that stand out that you go back to again and again for inspiration?

Off the top of my head, no. But if I saw their work I would recognize it and be able to tell you who made it. Selwy has some great anatomy studies, folds, cloth, different parts of the body. I really enjoy what he's done. He has some great sculpting tutorial information on his site. I go there often when I'm referencing anatomy.

(Jon sent me a number of links for his most visited sites after the interview. They can be found at the end of the article.)


Knowing what you know now, what advice would you have given yourself when you were just starting out?

I really feel, and I don't mean to sound conceited, I feel like what I did in school was very valuable. I obviously had fun in college but I'm glad of the choices I made. I kept my nose in the books and spent a lot of time in the computer labs really meeting people and making connections and learning the best that I could instead of going out and partying all the time. I would still go out and have fun but the rest of the time I spent working hard in the lab.

Those connections got me my contract jobs right out of college. I think if you're a student nowadays going to college trying to pursue games, there are so many kids that graduate it's all about connections. Of course there's your skill level. You've got to have the want and need to get better as an artist because the tools are always changing. You have to make that personal connection with the people around you and try to learn from others and be willing to learn yourself and make those connections.

Don't make them just because they can further your career, make them to value those friendships and help each other out, either with your next job or to have someone to bounce ideas off of or give you feedback on your work. It's very valuable and I think that helped me out a lot in my career.


What motivated you to work in the game industry?

I definitely liked playing games as a kid. I grew up with Nintendo in my hands and my dad he really liked games as well. I remember playing stuff like Duck Hunt, Mario Golf, Skate or Die, and Double Dragon with him. I've always been around video games so I always had a passion for gaming growing up.

Like I said I originally wanted to get into movies. Harry Potter 1 had just come out and I had a teacher that was a character effects artist who worked on hair simulation for the film. He was a super nice guy. He taught an intro to Houdini class. One day he was talking to us and he broke down crying in front of us.

He had this internal conflict because he had been working in visual effects for a long time and he barely saw his family because he was always at work. He didn't want to have these young kids he was teaching to go the same route he did where his marriage and ability to be a good parent suffered. He'd been doing a lot of different aspects of the VFX pipeline but had recently been stuck just working on hair for an entire project and it burned him out so much that he just lost it in our class.

That was a big shock, your professor halfway through class just does that. He came back after a short break and tried to start teaching but got choked up again. He left class that day and missed the next one. He came back the class after that and apologized to us. He said it just overwhelmed him. After that he got through the rest of the course okay.

He ended up leaving the following quarter. He went back to work on another movie. I guess he was strapped financially so he had to go back to the thing that made money for him and his family even though it was tearing him apart.

That experience had an impact on me. You only live one life. I make art because I love it. I'm not working another kind of job because I'm already doing my passion. It's what I'm good at and what I enjoy. I didn't want art to be a job but a career and something I had fun doing. It may be frustrating at times, but I'm making games! I put in extra time here and there but nowhere near what I would be for movies. I'm really glad I went this route. Having that teacher do that and scare the shit out of me had a big impact.

So after that happened did you start looking for alternative career paths where you could make use of your 3D skills? Or did you naturally think of games next?

The school I was at really pushed movies. There was no game development track. My degree is in Computer Animation and I don't animate anything. The track changed 5 times while I was in school. This was around the heyday of the Xbox and PS2. Bigger teams and higher budgets were needed to produce games for these systems.

It just happened that one of my best friends in college ended up getting a job working for a game company. He got me some contract work right out of school, so I went that route. I taught myself how to UV and texture models. That wasn't really taught to us in college. It was just, "make cool stuff" and make a final movie in a few months. It was just how things worked out from that first contract game job. I love games and realized it would be fun to keep doing that!


What are your favorite games, and why?

I haven't had as much time to play games recreationally recently. I'll borrow them to see how they look. I don't finish them or play them all the way through. I've always been a fan of the Bioshock series. I actually took the time to play through and enjoy those games. They aren't perfect but I like the freedom they give you in order to accomplish different combat scenarios. The atmosphere is visually beautiful. I like how when the lights are off and you're playing on your TV you feel like you're in this world.

I'm playing the new Batman: Arkham City now and I really want to play it all the way through. I'm having so much fun with the game mechanics like fighting or flying around the city and just being Batman! It's a really good game from the materials to the lighting to the animations. It's really fun to play.

I played the game Heavy Rain recently. It's a different sort of game with the sequence stuff but I really enjoyed playing it. I felt drawn in by the story and the characters. You do some mundane tasks at different points of the game that really slow down the pacing but you can see why they did these things. It got you to build this connection with the characters so when something happens to those characters you have more of an emotional investment in them than if they were just some random NPCs. It was a really unique experience.

Thanks for your time Jon!

If you'd like to see more of Jon's work, check out his blog.
http://www.jnasconeart.blogspot.com/

After the interview Jon sent me some of his favorite sites from which he draws inspiration. Check them out!

• Selwy 
• Rafael Grassetti
• Hellstern
• Vitaliy Naymushin
• Mike Klime
• Bogdan Gabelko